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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29045739">Weights and Measures</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarGzer/pseuds/StarGzer'>StarGzer</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Lancer (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 06:08:34</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,263</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29045739</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarGzer/pseuds/StarGzer</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Scott and Johnny spend an afternoon postponing the inevitable.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Weights and Measures</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Scott Lancer leaned against the cool stone wall of the well-house. A ribbon of sun hit him directly in the eye, so he yanked his hat down to eyebrow level. Just enough to see what was going on yet still appear uninterested.</p><p>Their meeting occurred casually, one could almost say circuitously, because after a breakfast of listening to Murdoch drone on about the evening’s festivities—<em>and yes, you both must be there</em>—he and Johnny had left the ranch with alacrity, in separate ways, to do their various chores. As if putting post holes into the ground or following obstinate cattle would somehow suspend The Event their paterfamilias had planned.</p><p>Johnny was broody so Scott lobbed out the first ball.</p><p>“Frank tried to throw a fence post over Tio Creek and sprained his shoulder.”</p><p>“He oughta know better that creek is too wide for a decent throw.”</p><p>“Harkins dared him.”</p><p>“Which one?”</p><p>As they were twins, the Harkins brothers were interchangeable except in temperament. “It was   Tommy.”</p><p>“I could have called that.”</p><p>“Frank will be laid up for a day or two.”</p><p>“I was wondering why you were late. Did you get the fencing done?”</p><p>“We did.”</p><p>They kept skirting the primary issue.</p><p>Johnny was finger-tapping an unheard melody on his hip. “That Tommy,” he said, “would bet against his own mother if he saw some money in it. But Bill is quiet as a church mouse. Funny how they’re so different.” He gave the wide piece of lumber by his foot a kick.</p><p>Scott fell to musing. The Event—he had assigned the name to it in his mind—loomed, but truthfully, he had no heart for it. The party was ostensibly for him and his brother. A one year coming home celebration. The <em>coming home</em> part was really a one-sided affair and all Murdoch’s doing. To be honest, he had accepted the somewhat late invitation with reserve back in Boston. Although Barbara’s father and brothers pounding on the door to her boudoir did add impetus to his decision. After all, there were only so many balconies a man could be expected to jump out of at any given time.      </p><p>“Are you gonna stand there all day or help out?”</p><p>He fell out of his lean and stretched to full height. Once more, his hat found the back of his head. “I would, Johnny, but I have no idea what you’re trying to accomplish.”</p><p>His brother straightened as well but flung his hat in a neat spiral to land atop the far end of the hitching post. He looked down at his feet in distaste. “Yeah, I don’t either. But Murdoch said he wanted it fixed before the party for the kids.”</p><p>Scott’s stomach let out a small growl to remind him he’d missed lunch and that dinner, albeit served the good china tonight, was a long way off. “Ah, so you don’t have any experience at these types of things?”</p><p>Johnny blew out a breath. “Not really. You?”</p><p>“Not really.”</p><p>“We make a real pair then, don’t we?”</p><p>“It can’t be too hard. It’s just a child’s toy.” He threw his hat with a flick of the wrist and watched it hit the opposite end of the hitching post, twirl around the inside of the brim and finally come to a satisfying stop. He leaned over the decrepit heap of metal and wood.</p><p>“Perhaps we should start with the fulcrum and go from there.”</p><p>One sweat-filled hour later produced a bruised thumb (Johnny’s) and several bouts of cursing—in both Spanish and English—yet they managed to pound the stand together and secure the wide board to its top to complete a rather tall see-saw.</p><p>Johnny picked up the hammer and threw it into the toolbox. “We’re done, I’m going to find a beer someplace. And if it takes going into to Green River to get it, that’s fine by me.”</p><p>“Aren’t you forgetting something? We’re both required to be here tonight.”</p><p>“I’m not forgetting anything. That’s why I need you to tell Murdoch I may be a little late.”</p><p>Scott shook his head, thinking he’d rather pound more fence posts than tell Murdoch that Johnny wasn’t coming to The Event. He ran his hand along the top of the board and came away with a large splinter for his trouble.</p><p>“Hold on, brother. I don’t think we’re done quite yet.” Scott lifted his palm for Johnny to see. “I have a sizeable plank in my hand from this rough board. Are we supposed to let the kiddies sit on it?”</p><p>“These are western kids. They’re tough. They’ll manage.”</p><p>Scott shoved his hand under Johnny’s nose. “Will they?”</p><p>Johnny’s eyebrows shot up at the stream of blood dripping off Scott’s hand.  “Um, maybe not. You need help?”</p><p>“I can get it.” He took out his knife and flipped it open.</p><p>While he picked awkwardly at the splinter’s entrance, Johnny sidled up so close Scott could smell the cattle on him. It wasn’t pleasant. It was even more unpleasant when Johnny unsheathed his large knife.</p><p>“You’re not touching me with that.”</p><p>“It won’t be a minute. Quit being an abuela.”</p><p>“A grandmother?” He choked out a laugh. “The last time I saw you use it was castration day.” He peered down at the blade. It was just as he thought. “You haven’t even cleaned it off properly.”</p><p>“I won’t use the whole blade, just the tip.”</p><p>“No thanks.” Scott handed Johnny his own knife. “Use this.”</p><p>Johnny shrugged. “Suit yourself. I don’t know why you have this little thing.”</p><p>That “little thing” had seen him through the war, but he didn’t know why he carried any knife at Lancer. Every time he went on the range each of the vaqueros and cowboys were loaded to the gills with sharp deadly instruments. He’d taken Frank aside and asked the obvious: why so many? Frank had responded that each knife had its own special purpose and nodded like Scott was supposed to be aware of exactly what those purposes were supposed to be. It was a wonder they didn’t clink when they walked.</p><p>“Just lift up that little piece of skin there, Johnny.”</p><p>The knife stopped. “I think I know how to get out a splinter.”</p><p>Scott raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything else.</p><p>Johnny tugged on his wrist and they both twisted around in some macabre dance to get better light. After some minor poking around, his brother fell back.</p><p>“The damn thing keeps sliding away.”</p><p>Scott held out his un-splintered hand for the knife. “Let me see.” After several tries, he managed to hook it out. He undid the bandana at his neck and sopped up the blood.</p><p>Johnny stared dolefully at the offending board. “Sanding is gonna take too long.” He looked up to the lemon of late afternoon sun. “And that beer is waiting.”</p><p>An idea eddied around in Scott’s brain until it formed and solidified. “I think I have our solution. Let’s walk over to the barn.”</p><p>Old bridles and halters spilled from the tack room. Charlie Wetzel, a young cowboy who couldn’t seem to quite get the hang of <em>cowboying</em> was sitting on an upturned barrel, oil rag held aloft. He watched ranch life as one watched a train chugging by—his mouth open, pleased, astonished, and a little confused. He’d been assigned the chore of oiling harnesses and assorted leathers as restitution for one of his minor ranch infractions.</p><p>“How you doing, Charlie?” asked Johnny.</p><p>“Okay. I’m almost done, at least with the bridles.” He put down his rag and asked with a wide grin, “You want I should round up your horses?”</p><p>“No. We’re just here to…what are we here for, Scott?”</p><p>“I’ll know it when I see it.” He scanned the room and found them, stacked neatly on the dirt floor near a pile of cracked leather. Two old saddles destined for the dustbin. He stripped the stirrups off and held them up. “Where do you want these?”</p><p>Charlie crooked his head to the heap of unusable tack. “I know I ain’t too bright. Everybody knows that.”</p><p>Scott looked at Johnny and they both looked at Charlie.</p><p>“What does that have to do with the saddles?” asked Scott.</p><p>“I seen those boards that you used for the see-saw. Pretty rough, huh? I set those saddles aside, just in case.”</p><p>Scott nodded.</p><p>Charlie looked shyly down at his lap. “I could shine them up real pretty.”</p><p>Johnny smiled. “That would be fine, Charlie. Just fine.”</p><p>They hauled the newly revitalized saddles back to the well-house and attached them on either side of the long board.</p><p>Johnny tipped the board down thoughtfully and watched it spring back up.</p><p>“It’d be on us if a Lancer kid got on it and something happened. We’d have all their mothers after us and Murdoch, too.”</p><p>“We’d be routed in a matter of minutes.” Scott put his hands on his hips. “And we couldn’t have that. What are you thinking?”</p><p>“Maybe we should give this a go ourselves.”</p><p>“You mean, test it out?”</p><p>Johnny nodded and, still standing, he slipped his leg over the saddle.</p><p>Moving to the other side, Scott did the same. “Go ahead.”</p><p>“You go ahead.”</p><p>“If that’s what you want.” Scott sat hard in the saddle—knees almost to chin—sending his brother hurtling upward, grinning when Johnny snatched at the horn to steady himself.</p><p>“I thought you didn’t have any experience at these things,” Johnny huffed out, legs dangling in the air.</p><p>Scott had seen them of course, but they hadn’t been <em>de rigueur </em>in his Boston neighborhood. Come to think of it, there was a lot of childish games he’d simply never played. He pushed off the ground. Then felt his eyeballs try to leave their sockets when his teeth clicked together from the impact of Johnny’s side hitting the ground. Too hard. On purpose. </p><p>He shook his head to clear the stars. “Truce? We probably shouldn’t break anything before The Event tonight.”</p><p>Johnny’s face darkened, but he slowly pushed off from the ground.</p><p>
  <em>*thud*</em>
</p><p>Safely on the ground, once more. “Why don’t you want this party?” Scott asked and pushed away.</p><p>“Who said I didn’t?”</p><p>
  <em>*thud*</em>
</p><p>Scott swung his legs freely. “You make that face every time someone mentions it, like eating a sour orange. There’s also the matter of that beer you suddenly need to have in Green River.”</p><p>Johnny raised his arm in a wide arc. “All this hoopla. For nothing. Although I expect you’re going to enjoy it.”</p><p>“You’d be wrong there, brother.”</p><p>Johnny looked up the length of the board in surprise. “Why not?”</p><p>“I don’t think it’s for nothing as you say. We managed a rather busy year, I think. We should celebrate a little. It’s just the pretense.”</p><p>“You mean the fact that I didn’t know I had a brother, we were both somewhere else a year ago, and now Murdoch is taking it on himself to show us off as his sons?”</p><p>*thud*</p><p>Nail on the head, thought Scott. It wasn’t that he was ungrateful. It just seemed a little…<em>soon</em>. He knew more about his notoriously tight-lipped brother’s past than he did Murdoch. And didn’t that say something?</p><p>The board bounced a little. “Hey, let me down,” Johnny said.</p><p>*thud*</p><p>Scott crossed his arms on the way up, getting into the rhythm of it now that he knew his teeth were safe. “It seems a bit premature to trot us out like prized palominos so the crowd can look us over.”</p><p>Johnny nodded in agreement. “He’s sure excited about it and that makes me want to dig my heels in. Goddamn, he loves this ranch.”</p><p>Watching, Scott saw Johnny force himself to stop. Things slipped out if his brother wasn’t careful. Important things that he kept close, that he didn’t want displayed like lanterns at the mercantile.</p><p>Scott found himself floating downwards.</p><p>*thud*</p><p> Johnny looked towards the big white arch in the distance. “I think of Lancer as…sort of…you know…a salvation. I never came here after my mother died. Didn’t see the point if the old man threw her out. But now that I know different?” He shrugged.</p><p>Scott understood. On the way back up, he flung his arms out to his sides and tipped his face to the sun.</p><p>*thud*</p><p>Because he felt it was owed, he gave his own confessional. “Lancer is my escape from a lifetime of boardrooms and boredom. My own salvation, in a way.” Murdoch was part and parcel, however new that idea still felt to him.</p><p>A seesaw (of all things) that looked like a balance scale. Designed to weigh and measure all who dared to take a ride. He and his brother were up to the task, not only in dealings with the ranch—as they already had shown this year. Surely, they were capable as sons, too. Maybe this was what Murdoch was trying to tell them. </p><p>He would have to revise his notion that a seesaw was merely a child’s toy.</p><p>He cracked open an eye. “Johnny, we need to go to that party.”</p><p>A huff of breath signaled capitulation. “I know.” His brother pushed away from the ground just until Scott could gain his feet.</p><p>They stood on their own legs now, straddling the saddles, the seesaw balanced between them.</p><p>The way ahead was uncertain and flawed, most assuredly. Unbalanced. But while he and Johnny may teeter in all things familial, he was quite sure they would never totter.</p><p>The End</p>
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